Critic Picks

By RICHARD CORLISS

THE PLAYER Directed by Robert Altman; Screenplay by Michael Tolkin

Was Citizen Kane a box-office blockbuster? Did Jean Renoir get gross profit points on La Grande Illusion? And Fellini, did he go way over budget on 8 1/2?

The answers are No, No, and Who cares. Generations of directors, on Hollywood's movie-factory treadmill and in Europe's atelier system, made movies without having to fret that $100 million was riding on the outcome. And generations of moviegoers were privileged to sit in the innocence of a dark theater without having to study the list of weekend grosses like a tout sheet. Who knew, back then, what pictures hit and what flopped?

Griffin Mill, the hero of the delicate and corrosive new movie The Player, knows and cares. Mill (Tim Robbins) is the Vice President in Charge of Abusing Writers at a Hollywood studio. He knows the game, and his bosses know he knows it; he is, in the parlance, a player. And when Mill receives threatening notes from one of his writers, he can play rough. He tracks down a suspect (Vincent D'Onofrio) and puts him in turnaround. He immediately woos the writer's tawny girlfriend (Greta Scacchi) and dumps his own. No screaming, no remorse. Business.

In the movie business, perception is reality because "all rumors are true." An executive will go to A.A. meetings not because he is an alcoholic but because "that's where all the deals are being made." Michael Tolkin's script abounds in such cynical wisdom, but it never loses an appreciation for the grace with which these snakes consume their victims. Robert Altman, whom Hollywood has both favored (in his M*A*S*H days) and dismissed (over the past decade), directs the bright carnage with an assurance that only a hard-hided survivor can provide. He is like St. Sebastian, plucking the arrows from his body and flinging them back, like gentle javelins, at the infidels.

The Player has already caused a stir in Hollywood, thanks to its smart tone, its veiled references to industry figures and its imposing cast of walk-on stars (dozens, and big ones). Will this all seem too insidey to the public? Maybe not. The decade-long spotlighting of the movie industry -- on Entertainment Tonight, in newspapers and best sellers -- has taught the mass audience that film production is a spectator sport. Like any other modern sport, it trades in money and celebrity, scandal and sex appeal; it has big winners and losers, all playing for high stakes, which they are happy to drive into their opponents' little black hearts. To them, Griffin Mill is not a parody; he is a patron saint.

But to speculate on whether Altman's movie will be a hit is to surrender to the players' game: to judge a film's success by its grosses. It is this fascination with the B.O. bull's-eye that strikes timidity in so many directors. In every frame of their work you can smell the fear of failure, the anxiety of losing for even a moment the rooting interest of the moviegoing mob.

Altman is beyond all that. His view is Olympian. His camera, prowling like a house dick on roller skates, challenges you to find the crucial detail in each corner of an eight-minute opening shot. Pay attention, he says; be an adult. Watch the gorgeous gargoyles in the fun-house mirror, and you'll see more than the people who make movies stink. You might catch a glimpse of your own compromised self. Hey, babe, these days we're all players.